World English Rights?

Ruth2

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Is it possible to sell English World rights, except for one small country?

I'm working on a memoir/biography with a friend overseas. Today he tells me he's talked with a publisher in his country (Slovenia) who is very interested in the book. Of course it will come out in Slovene, but they also want to do a small limited run of about 200 in English to be given away as gifts.

Won't this mess up the English rights world-wide?
 

Old Hack

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Ruth, I've peeled your post out of the thread you left it in and started a new thread so you can get the best advice.

If you've already sold English-speaking rights to anyone you can't then sell world English to anyone else.

If you then sold "world English except for Slovenia" somewhere else, you'd have two different English editions of the book which might be a problem. Can you be sure that this "gift" edition would be properly edited, by someone with strong editing experience whose first language was English?
 

Ruth2

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Thanks, Old Hack. I appreciate it. I wasn't sure where the best place was for it.

Re: the editing -- That's one of the things I'm checking on now. What might be the best to ensure I get proper editing is to have it edited here, then deliver it there and make sure they used my version for English.

Thanks for the heads up. I appreciate it.

One other thing: The book here would definitely be a niche market. Nothing the Big Six would be interested in.
 
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Old Hack

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There are plenty of publishers which aren't one of the Big Six. And if you try to sell your book to any of them--which I assume is what you were thinking of when you asked your question regarding world English rights--then they're going to be reluctant to proceed if there's another English version out there which people might well mistake for theirs.

Having your book edited yourself is not going to resolve these potential problems.
 

victoriastrauss

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There are plenty of publishers which aren't one of the Big Six. And if you try to sell your book to any of them--which I assume is what you were thinking of when you asked your question regarding world English rights--then they're going to be reluctant to proceed if there's another English version out there which people might well mistake for theirs.

Having your book edited yourself is not going to resolve these potential problems.
I agree.

- Victoria
 

Ruth2

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World English rights are the rights to publish world-wide in the English language.
 

Debbie V

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I have a picture book done work-for-hire for a Korean publisher in English. The publisher only owns Korean rights, but I have not been able to sell the story elsewhere. Of Course, it could just be the story, but ...

Just a word of experience.